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6 Ways to Stay Productive Through the Holidays

For many service-based businesses, the weeks from mid-November to mid-January holds very little promise of closing a new client. People are just too focused on the holidays and channeling their financial resources there. Given that the average entrepreneur spends 30%+ of their time nurturing leads and activities related to sales, knowing that the next few months will be slow could free up some of your time.

For many of us, our best bet is to use these couple of months to focus internally. Rather than spinning your cycles and investing a ton of energy chasing down leads, you may find some freedom in stepping back.

Caveat – if your business sells a service or something tangible that could make a great holiday gift then you would do best to invest your energy in crafting some marketing campaigns to ensure everyone thinks of your business when doing their gift buying.

Here are a few ideas of how to invest that extra time should you choose to step back from sales for a bit.

Get Internal Projects Done

Do you have a long to-do list that you never get to because you prioritize clients? Now is the perfect time to clean up your email, reorganize your files, get some documentation done. Perhaps even hire your first assistant since you’ll have plenty of time to train them.

Get Out There

There tend to be lots of holiday parties and networking events. Go! Make new connections and take great notes. Be sure to follow up immediately. Set a reminder to follow up mid-January to schedule something so you can reconnect and go deeper once you’re back to a business focus.

You can also use the holidays as a genuine reason to reconnect with those you may have lost your momentum with. Look through old leads and connections and see if there’s anyone you want to schedule a holiday catch up with.

Get Your Learn On

Take a workshop or class, business related or just for fun! Perhaps even teach one, again for business or just for fun.

Get Clear on Your Strategy

The last couple months of the year are a wonderful time to reflect on the year past, how you’ve done meeting your goals, and considering what your strategy and goals will be for the coming year. What will you promote? When? Etc. Naturally, I’d be delighted to support you in this process. 😉

Get Ahead

Imagine getting 6 months of blog posts, social media promotions etc. all complete going into the new year! If you’re clear on your strategy for the coming months then you can easily get the marketing copy, supporting blog articles, social media promos etc. pre-written and even queued up. This could give you loads of extra time to focus on gaining new clients later on.

Get Present

You could simply use the extra time to breathe and be with your family. It’s really easy to get super stressed about the chaos of the holidays, especially if you feel like you’re not making your sales/financial targets. What could be awesome for you is to still do your normal sales work, and, accept that it may be slower than normal.